I have found the postgress docs to be rather difficult to
get through as well.
> What is a query?
A query is a question that you ask of your db, e.g. 'give
me the address of the persons whose last name is 'Smith'. In postgress,
this would read something like:
SELECT address FROM mydb where lastname = 'Smith';
Here are a few mildly helpful sources:
Probably the most useful doc with which to get started (note that this
is probably for a slightly older version of the software than you have):
http://www.eol.ists.ca/~dunlop/postgres95-manual/
section 4 gives some examples of how to put data in and get it back out.
and a few other docs...
FAQ:
http://www.PostgreSQL.ORG/docs/faq-english.shtml
Man pages for psql functions:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/man/
SQL tutorial (note that postgress is not exactly SQL, but talks about the
basics of databases):
http://w3.one.net/~jhoffman/sqltut.htm
Perl interface to postgress (rather nice):
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/Pg.pm.shtml
Note that postgress itself (as far as I have seen) is not intended
as a front end (ie to provide the user with a gui), but with tools
like perl, it is relatively straight forward to put together a text-based
interface (or even an HTML one).
I just saw Damian's reply - he is probably right if all you want
to do is quick lookups....
Andy Fagg
KB6WIA
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
> I'm wondering if ANYONE has used the posgress data base? It comes
> already loaded on Red Hat 5.2 and I printed the large book "PostgrSQL
> User's Guide" by Thomas Lockhart. It is exactly useless to me!
>
> I found there is a posgres login and so I can su - postgres and I
> will be in that login. I did a "createdb mydb" and it worked. Then I used
> psql mydb and that worked. Then I saw that destroydb mydb works fine.
>
> I now have postgres open in an nxterm window by itself and want to
> enter a data base which is an ascii phone number name address list. But
> there is no way to do this. The book stops here and goes off talking about
> SQL and without any explanation.
>
> What is a query?
>
> I am just lost. Is there a REAL Postgres User's Manual? Should I
> quit trying to use it because I am so stupid? The postgres-HOWTO is even
> MORE confusing bringing in perl and other things. I just want to put in
> names and telephone numbers.
>
> Best wishes
>
> - Karl F. Larsen, 3310 East Street, Las Cruces,NM (505) 524-3303 -
>
